Friday, March 19, 2010

"When you walk in March for Babies, you give hope to the more than half a million babies born too soon each year. The money you raise supports programs in your community that help moms have healthy, full-term pregnancies. And it funds research to find answers to the problems that threaten our babies. We’ve been walking since 1970 and have raised an incredible $1.8 billion to benefit all babies."

Babies like Brady, Katie Jade, and Carter, just to name a few.

Babies who may not have lived were it not for the advances made by March of Dimes.

I will be participating in March for Babies this year.

There are event spots all over Indiana, April through May.

If you would be interested in starting a team with me, please comment below!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

It's St. Patrick's Day, or more importantly: My Mother's Birthday. My beautiful, amazing, strong, workaholic Mom. The woman who brought me into this world. The woman who fought for me, fought with me, worked for me, worked with me, believed in me, believed with me. Fights. Works. Believes.

Sometimes my biggest critic, always my biggest fan. A woman who has never, never, never given up. A woman who infuriates me, and makes me laugh. Often at the same time. She who can put up with my mood swings and tantrums like NO OTHER. She who has talked me down from a crying fit at 4am. More than once. She who has loved me unconditionally.

The text copies and pastes funky [probably a sure fire sign they would prefer I not copy and paste the text!], but I wanted to share my favorite snippet:

"I am also relatively unworried about my own chances of becoming a parent, because although aunting will never give me anything like the full course of motherhood, it does give me a wonderful, powerful -- and possibly sufficient -- taste of it. While I will never be the children's mother, I will always be their family, with all the history, complexity, and fidelity that entails. I couldn't drop them like a yoga class, a book club, or a waning friendship, even if I wanted to. I have known them forever, and they have known me.

That's it, really: We just know each other and know, as one so rarely can these days, that we will always know each other.

Sometimes, he pretends he can't open the door to the garage by himself [to his litter]. But later, when Mark is around, he OWNS that door.

Other times, he will gimp down the stairs like gravity is hurting him. I will get all concerned, and five minutes later he'll be trying to play hide and seek with us, and zipping around the house like it's a race track. [Wonder who he gets that from!!!]

When I first moved in with Mark, Russ would occasionally hop up on the counter while we were cooking, or hanging out in the kitchen.

He wanted to chill too, I got/get that, but it's still kind of gross, so we would shoo him off.

Or, we would take a picture and then shoo him off.

The other night, Mark and I are cooking / hanging out in the kitchen.

And Russ is Insisting on walking directly underneath our feet at all times.

At this point, I'm thinking it would be better if he COULD just get up on the counter and CHILL OUT.

I bring this up, and we get into a heated debate over whether or not Russ can jump that high anymore. I am absolutely, 100%, without a doubt certain that he is too old, too arthritic to be jumping much higher than the couch.